Rogers is gearing up to cut off millions of hockey fans from being able to watch Hockey Night in Canada online. Bell and Rogers are using their power and control over our media options to force Canadians into subscribing to what many now view as the outdated medium of TV.

I was now resigned to my fate. We weren't going to save much money and likely would have fewer channels. My instinct was confirmed when I received my first new Bell bill headed with the words: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." But I'm no quitter; I'm sure there's a third way out of this telecom hell.

The biggest heist in history was when newspapers and magazines allowed Google to "crawl" their content to readers, to pay nothing and to sell ads around their stories. Google became, in other words, the ubiquitous newspaper right under the noses of proprietors who should have charged.

Like the disappearance of the landline telephone, the withering of cable will be less about long-time subscribers making a bold shift than about successive generations below them simply failing to sign up for a service they see as an unnecessary encumbrance.